WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, issued the following statement this evening after President Obama held a news conference on the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) targeting of conservative groups:

“I’m glad the President responded to Senate Republicans’ call for full cooperation with Congress as we investigate the wholly inappropriate targeting of conservative groups. The bipartisan investigation that the Finance Committee has begun will be robust, it will be fair and it will ensure that we find out exactly what happened, so this can never, ever happen again. A great number of questions remain; they demand answers. The resignation of Steven Miller is a positive and important step as this agency struggles to try to regain the public’s trust. A clean slate at the IRS with new leadership is imperative to fix this egregious encroachment on the lives of honest, hard-working Americans whose only sin was that they want to express their beliefs. Whether a conservative, moderate or a liberal, what happened at the IRS is chilling and violates the most basic American principle that our liberty requires restraints on government.”